


Wilt

by Polyhexian



Series: Hanahaki AU [1]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Do NOT underestimate how stupid I'm willing to make whirl, Good ending timeline, Hanahaki Disease, I think this is a black comedy, Multi, Osama Tezuka's Blackjack is copiously referenced and integral to the plot, Pining, Post-Canon, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, This is a whirl fic so it comes with the relevant warnings, Xenobiology, general ptsd suicidal ideation body dysmorphia etc etc, tags update with chapters, you know the drill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:34:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24442174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polyhexian/pseuds/Polyhexian
Summary: "The Macguffin Sector," the organic corrected him, "This strain of Hanahaki Flower prefers the taste of suffering caused by unrequited love. They are not theoretically difficult to kill, but we simply cannot risk approaching them- once they've taken root in the body, they can quickly kill a host, growing roots and vines through their insides and causing increasingly frequent episodes of pain until it becomes unbearable or kills them. The only way to save the victim is to starve the plant at the source, whatever suffering it is feeding on.""Oooh hoo hoo," Whirl laughed, "You mean they gotta get a love confession from their crush or die, huh?""Yes, those are the stakes."
Relationships: Cyclonus/Tailgate (Transformers), Cyclonus/Tailgate/Whirl (Transformers), Whirl/Nautica (Transformers)
Series: Hanahaki AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1855993
Comments: 62
Kudos: 145





	1. Pilostyles Thurberi

**Author's Note:**

> God the tone of this is just LUDICROUSLY irreverent. It's Very obvious I just reread the Christmas special and I'm in a Mood. 
> 
> Fic is already outlined, tags will update with chapters but suffice to say it's going to move up from M to E, but I don't want to mark it E when there's nothing E in it yet. This is post mtmte good ending, on the ship that's still bopping around a new universe having a grand old time. 
> 
> I literally never get into like au stuff like soulmate aus or highschool aus or something, they never do anything for me but I JUST found out about this Hanahaki thing after reading EatYourSparkOut's positively delicious simpatico "Hazard Light" and I've not been able to stop thinking about writing one since. And like, apparently I only write whirlcygate now because that's the kind of quarantine we're having, so. Time for more Whirl back on his bullshit. 
> 
> Lastly, my transformers blog is Whirlibirb on Tumblr!! Blease come yell at me about my fics. Thank

Whirl picked at some gunk that was sticking to the seamlines inside of his arm rotors, while the tiny organic creature flipped through papers on its desk, all six of its arms skimming through files, humming and hawwing. Finally, the organic looked up at Whirl, who, even sitting on the floor, had to hunch over nearly halfway to fit in the room. 

"You are… Whirl, yes?"

"Yup, that's me," Whirl yawned, still picking at his rotors. 

"Right, lovely," the organic mumbled, "I apologize, your digital systems are incompatible with ours, we've had to _print_ everything, like savages," the organic rolled all of its eyes at once, "First, just to confirm: your Captain has informed me it will take three days to complete your vessel's repairs, and we are unfortunately unable to accept the currency with which you have available. We arrived at a deal entitling your vessel to up to one week's dock space in exchange for the crew- that would be you- doing some work on the planet while you're here. Do you consent to this agreement?"

"Yeah, yeah, just point me at what you want me to pick up and move," Whirl waved, dismissively.

"Actually, Whirl, your Captain indicated _here_ on your profile that you are 'proficient in destruction' and 'easily bored,' and that I should 'give Whirl the most dangerous job you have available.' What are your thoughts on this assessment?"

"Accurate," Whirl sniffed, leaning forward on his knees, "You caught my attention with dangerous. What do you got for me?" 

"I have a few options for you, actually!" the organic chirped, fluttering its antennae in a way Whirl thought suggested delight, "Allow me to go over them. The first job I have available in the dangerous category is harvesting a rare but invaluable mineral in the Mägmättër caverns below the planet's surface. Our organic bodies cannot survive the temperatures there, but it has been indicated to me that you- um- supertronians are far more resilient."

"Yeah, us supertronians are better with heat," Whirl confirmed, "But I ain't a miner. I ain't got the tools, and magma will still melt me. I think Rodders might actually be immune to fire or something though."

"Oh!" the organic scrambled through it's papers for a moment before writing down a note, "Thank you. Okay, my next job is clearing the Macguffin Sector of Hanahaki flowers-"

"Pfft, flowers?" Whirl scoffed, "I thought you said this was the dangerous stuff!"

"Oh, Hanahaki flowers are _very_ dangerous!" the organic insisted, leaning forward on its desk, "They are a _carnivorous_ _psychic_ _parasite_. They grow like wild, and when the spores are inhaled, they take root within the body. This plant gets all of its nutrients from the _suffering_ of its host, psychically- there's actually several varieties, with specific preferences, for example, the _Eugenesista_ strain focuses on the host's grief over dead loved ones, while-"

"Yeah, yeah, what about the ones in the whatever sector?" 

"The _Macguffin_ Sector," the organic corrected him, "This strain of Hanahaki prefers the taste of suffering caused by _unrequited love._ They are not theoretically difficult to kill, but we simply cannot risk approaching them- once they've taken root in the body, they can quickly kill a host, growing roots and vines through their insides and causing increasingly frequent episodes of pain until it becomes unbearable or kills them. The only way to save the victim is to starve the plant at the source, whatever suffering it is feeding on."

"Oooh hoo hoo," Whirl laughed, "You mean they gotta get a love confession from their crush or die, huh?"

"Yes, those are the stakes."

"Heh," Whirl snickered, "That's _super_ contrived. _Super_ tronian, even. Good news is I ain't never caught feelings for nobody in the last four million years, so I got no worries there."

"I have my doubts it would even _work_ on a metal host such as yourself," the organic handwaved, "But, not guaranteed! So it is marked within our _most dangerous_ category."

"Heh," Whirl laughed, "Awesome. Alright, whatever, you just need me to roll in some coordinates and, what, go weeding? That's boring."

"Oh, perish the thought," the organic scoffed, "I would suggest using fire."

"Well, hot dog, then, that's the magic word! Sign me up, doc!" 

* * *

Whirl was thoroughly enjoying his last trip to the washracks now that his job had officially been completed. Three days of burning out a valley of vines covered in innocent looking little baby blue flowers, and he was mostly just tired of ash in his engine. It was so hard to get out, and left him standing under the water, running through half transformations forward and back to get solvent in all the right places. 

"Hey, I know that tssch-tssch-tssch!" a familiar voice said in the stall beside him, and over the top of the divider popped Tailgate's faceplate. "Hey there, Whirlibird!"

"Wow, rude," Whirl commented, bending forward to run another half transformation of his fuselage, jittering through the process and dumping vile smelling ashen water onto the floor without a hint of shame, "Didn't nobody ever teach you it's weird to peep on a guy in the shower?"

"Oh, don't act like you care," Tailgate snorted, leaning forward on the divider, "You're happy to see me."

"Okay, I won't, and I am," Whirl snapped his spinal strut back together and stood up with a shake, stretching his arms under the stream, "I feel like I got dirt down to my drive shaft."

The light from Tailgate's visor narrowed suspiciously. "You don't have a drive shaft."

"Man, I don't know _what_ I got in there. I just know it's dirty. Duck," Whirl said, and then did not pause for Tailgate to heed his warning before he turned on his rotors, spinning them directly into the after and sending it spraying absolutely _everywhere._

Tailgate shrieked as a stream of solvent hit him directly in the faceplate and he dove back behind the divider. Whirl turned his rotors back off and returned to his half-transformation dance. Tailgate's head popped back up.

"Do you want any help with that?" Tailgate asked, and Whirl stopped, cockpit inside out and sideways.

"What?" 

"You can't get in there with a brush, right?" Tailgate specified, pointing, "The way your wrists are jointed."

"Oh, uh," Whirl raised his arms, "You're right."

"Do you want a hand, then? Uh, help, I mean, sorry, I didn't mean to say h-"

"Yeah, yeah, sure, why not," Whirl cut him off, and then felt a jolt of pride that his first instinct had been to accept help rather than make a fight of it. His therapist would be so proud! If only he could remember who his therapist was. 

Tailgate hopped back down and grabbed a bristle brush from the wall, dragging the stool from his stall along with him and dropping it in front of Whirl, clambering up onto it. "You can put it back rightways and then split it back the way you had it earlier, I think," Tailgate asserted, tilting his head to the side. Whirl tried his best not to feel particularly embarrassed while he did as he was told. Tailgate got to work, and the water immediately went from running pale grey to running grey-black.

"Wow, you really did get this stuff everywhere, huh?"

"Ugh, yeah, I've literally been burning organic matter for _days_ ," Whirl complained, "I feel like I got ash in my _spark chamber_ at this point."

"I don't think I can help you with that one," Tailgate giggled. Whirl felt a twinge in his aforementioned spark chamber at the comment.

"Uh, what did you get stuck doing then, huh?" 

"Wouldn't you believe it!" Tailgate exclaimed, " _Bomb disposal!_ "

"What?" 

Tailgate looked positively gleeful as worked the brush back into his engine, and Whirl worked _very_ hard not to shudder at the attention, "Yeah, they had like, this old field filled with like landmines or something, but they're like, itty bitty like the organics on that planet were, so I could just, like, step on them!"

"You spent three days walking around a minefield?" Whirl laughed, "Primus, did you tell hornhead that? He's gonna _flip_."

"Oh, _he_ got _lucky_ ," Tailgate rolled his optical display in his visor, "He just did sword lessons for the locals. He didn't have to do any _real_ work."

"Oooh, I'm tellin' him you said that," Whirl teased.

Tailgate gasped, pulled out the brush, and bopped Whirl on the head with it, "Don't you dare! I'll let you finish this yourself!" 

Whirl raised his claws in a display of surrender, "Okay, okay, you've sworn me to silence, geez."

" _Thank_ you," Tailgate tutted, resuming, "And on _that_ note, I just wanted to say I'm proud of you for letting someone help you with something for once."

"Oh, uh, thanks, I guess," Whirl mumbled, very much wanting to crawl out of his own frame and vanish, suddenly, "It's been on my to do list." 

"Oh yeah? What else is on there?" Tailgate tilted Whirl to the side to get at the back of his rotor mast.

"Go to Swerve's and drink him out of house and home, the usual."

"Good, then you can come hang out with me and Cyclonus when I tell him about the bombs," Tailgate winked, which always looked particularly odd with his visor, but cute nonetheless. 

Whirl jolted, suddenly, as a sharp pain shot through his frame, and Tailgate froze.

"Are you okay? Did I hit something?" he fretted, visor bright with concern. Whirl honestly wasn't sure _what_ that was.

"Uh, I guess? That's what I get for going so long without cleaning that deep, huh?" he laughed, weakly, awkwardly, "Come on, I'm clean enough. Let's go get drunk."

"Sounds like a plan to me!" Tailgate gave Whirl a thumbs up. 

Bizarrely, he felt another dull twinge, deep in his frame, even without the brush. 

* * *

Whirl was trying to enjoy his favourite nightmare fuel and phosphoric acid mixer when it occurred to him something was wrong. The drink itself tasted fine, but for some reason, it was going down unpleasantly, leaving his intake sore, all the way from his wrist to his fuel tank. It was making it obnoxiously difficult to get drunk when he wasn't really enjoying drinking. 

"...though, if I must be honest, I admit that he was actually picking up the form surprisingly well, despite his poor attitude," Cyclonus sighed, "Though I suspect not a single one of them will retain a thing I taught them now that we have left." 

"Ah, good riddance," Whirl snorted, "They ain't even got a civil war to use your awesome sword skills in, anyway, teachin' 'em was a total waste of time." Whirl eyed Tailgate as he leaned forward on his elbows on the table, visor brightening mischievously. "What?"

"You said his sword skills were 'awesome,'" Tailgate said, teasingly. 

"I did _not_!" Whirl snapped. 

"Certainly not," Cyclonus said in a patronizing tone, sipping his engex through a smirk. Whirl tried to channel all of his energy into conveying a proper glare at him. 

"It's good to be back on the road, though," Tailgate sighed, and then glanced down at Whirl's untouched drink, "Are you not gonna finish that?" 

"Huh?" Whirl looked down at it and considered downing it immediately, but his fuel tank rumbled in protest, "Nah."

"Yoink," Tailgate said, stealing it and popping his curly straw from his empty glass into Whirl's, "Thanks, Birdy."

The next thing Whirl felt he might have described as akin to someone taking his primary fuel line and _twisting_ it in his gut. He doubled over onto the table, optic going hazy, colours blurring together. It only lasted a second, but it left him gasping and disoriented. That was _not_ normal.

When his head cleared, he realized Cyclonus had grabbed him by the shoulder and was trying to get his attention. He realized his audials had shorted and reset them, shaking his helm.

"-Irl, are you alright?" Cyclonus asked, and all the teasing jeering had gone from his optics.

"I dunno, uh, I just felt, like- weird, for a second there."

"Do you believe it requires medical attention?" Cyclonus asked, and Whirl felt another strange tug inside, "I will take you." 

The next jolt was as bad as the previous one, but he was far more braced this time, only going rigid and turning his optic offline for a moment until it passed. They were both still staring at him, optics brimming with genuine concern for him, and-

Oh.

Oh, _shit_.

Whirl snapped his helm up and did his best to look composed, but he knew he was still shaky, "Uh, actually I think I just realized what it is, and I gotta go right now."

"What?" Tailgate asked as Whirl scrambled out of their booth, "What is it? What's wrong?"

"It's, uhhhh, personal. Uhhh. It's a sex thing. I gotta go."

"Oh, uh, okay," Tailgate said, awkwardly, as Whirl fled the bar entirely.

By the time he made it back to his room he thought he might definitely be in the throes of a panic attack, and he pressed his back to his door, checking three times that it was locked before he dared to transform his chest open and start poking around. He had to be thinking crazy, he had to just be projecting some unrealized hypochondriac anxiety or something- everything _seemed_ fine, he'd just _thoroughly washed_ his entire engine and chest cavity to boot. 

Well, except one place. 

He hesitated, longer than he should have, before transforming back the tertiary plating to reveal his spark chamber. Lining the inner cavity walls, deeper than he could safely reach, through the fizzled glow of his spark, he could see whip thin Hanahaki vines clutching the walls of his spark chamber, roots digging into the metal.

That… was not good. 


	2. Nuytsia Floribunda

Whirl snapped his arms up over his open chestplate when there was a knock at the door, the firm, resounding pattern with which Cyclonus always made his presence known. 

"Whirl!" the grim samurai's voice called through the door, "Are you alright?"

"Yes!" Whirl responded, agitated, processor spinning out of controller, "I told you it's _private!"_

"You have a tendency to self-isolate when you are worried about imposing and you know this, open the door."

" _And_ I require a refractory period to consolidate my anxieties before confronting them, blabla _bla_ , I can psychobabble too, y'know!" Whirl snapped, winglets pressed flat against the door, desperately trying to reign in his racing thoughts and wildly beating spark before the stupid plant got any worse and killed him, aching as it already was along the lining of his spark chamber. 

"Hm. This is also true," Cyclonus paused, "I am concerned you are hiding something and putting yourself at risk of further injury. Is it something terribly dire?" 

"It's not fucking _dire_ ," Whirl spat, and, to his credit, wasn't entirely certain it was a lie, he had no idea what kind of timeline he was looking at for this thing, "Go away." 

"Fine, but only because Tailgate is infinitely better at prying these things out of you." The words sent another sharp shock of pain through his spark, and this time, looking at it, he could _see_ the vines wriggle and expand and send out new roots in a growth spurt that made his fuel tank flip and roil in disgust, "We are not finished with this conversation. I will be back later when you've had time to wallow and regret being so stubborn."

"Okay, thank you, _goodbye!_ " Whirl snapped his chestplates shut, clutching his arms over his cockpit and pulling his knees up against it, shuddering as the waves of pain rippled through his frame. He heard Cyclonus sigh outside before his footsteps finally left, and Whirl scrambled to his pedes.

This was _bad._ This was _worst-case scenario._ He was fucked. He was _so_ fucked. 

So much for being proud of him _asking for help_. Whirl had been an _idiot_ to buy into all the _trauma recovery_ babble and let himself forget _why_ he was such an ornery son of a glitch in the first place. "Maladaptive coping mechanisms" was a nice way of saying "your survival skills are no longer convenient! Get rid of them." Pre "recovery" Whirl would _not_ be in this situation. What a joke.

He fumbled in his desk for a circuit dampener to try and dull the pain at least a little bit. His pain tolerance might be high, but it was fucking with his ability to think clearly and he really, really needed to come up with a game plan. He grabbed the dampener jack from beneath a datapad Tailgate had leant him and jabbed it into the back of his neck, sighing at the immediate relief as pain became pressure.

Okay. Game plan.

Obviously, he couldn't tell _them_ the truth. _Cygate_ was like, a perfect unit at this point. They'd been doing their Conjunx Endura victory lap so smoothly at this point that it was like they'd never ceaselessly, miserably and publically pined for each other in the first place. He had worked _too hard_ to get those idiots to talk about their _feelings_ and get their happily ever after. So what if he had a dumb crush on them? God, two crushes, on a _married couple_. Whirl really _was_ a disaster.

Breaking them up was off the table. Neither of them could ever love him more than each other and that was a _fact_. He wouldn't even _want_ them too. Besides, a confession from one meant misery for the other, and wouldn't starve out the dumb parasite. So, that was a complete nonstarter. Cygate was _not_ going to be interrupted. No solution there. 

That created a new problem, though, because Whirl had been dumb enough to trick those two into being _invested_ in him. He ached for the comfort of wallowing in self pity and pretending no one cared about him, but he didn't have the luxury, and he had to face the unfortunate fact that if they found out Whirl Having A Crush On Them Was Literally Killing Him it would be, at best, a little upsetting. 

So they absolutely could _not_ find out. Which meant no one _else_ could find out, either, because no one on this wretched ship knew how to keep their stupid mouths shut about anything. That left him in a difficult position. He _had_ been lazily pestering First Aid to teach him some medical stuff, mostly because Cyclonus kept pestering him to do something, eugh, _emotionally fulfilling,_ but it's not like he was a doctor. And this thing was in his _spark chamber_ , he was not going to go poking around in there unless he was ready to go offline doing it. He wasn't ready for that just yet.

Okay. Plan A.

Plan A was to surreptitiously figure out a way to cut the thing _out_ before it killed him _without_ Cygate finding out. Plan A was to live and kill another day, but also, like, under no circumstances admit he was dying from a fatal case of Catching Feelings. 

Plan B, failing Plan A, was the same thing Plan B always was: find a nice dark room he could be alone in and kill himself before anybody figured out what was actually killing him. 

Right! Awesome, okay, gameplan established.

* * *

> [21:08:34] Cyclonus: You are not in your room. Where are you?

Whirl ignored the message, kicking his pedes beneath First Aid's desk as he made a nuisance of himself and the doctor's paperwork. 

"Sooo, like, theoretically," Whirl asked, as First Aid did his best to ignore him, working on repairing some diagnostic equipment on the counter, "What would you do if you had to go poking around in someone's spark chamber?" 

"Why don't you ever ask these questions when I'm not busy?" First Aid grumbled, "I _told_ you I didn't mind working with you, as long as you came when I _wasn't_ busy."

"Okay, but, like, what would you do?"

"Knock them out first, obviously," First Aid answered, torquing something Whirl couldn't see within the machine's mechanisms, "Though, to tell you the truth, if I need to dig something out of there their odds aren't great to begin with."

"Whaaaat about, like, if they had to do it on themselves, huh?" Whirl prodded.

First Aid paused and turned a suspicious visor on Whirl, "Why do you ask?"

Whirl, however, had come prepared. 

He sent First Aid a chapter of Osamu Tezuka's _Blackjack_ that Swerve had given him, ironically saying that if Whirl ever learned how to do surgery he would inevitably end up in the situation the comic's protagonist found himself- alone in the Australian desert, attempting to do surgery on himself to cut out a fatal parasite, while also being accosted by wild dingos. "Swerve showed me this and I thought it was buckwild."

First Aid paused, optics tracking as he skimmed through the download, "This is insane," he commented, "I think I love this."

"You see my point? So, like, okay, imagine this is you. You're being hunted by dingos. You're in a big plastic bubble. It's like a trillion degrees. You've got a parasite in your gut. There's no one for a hundred miles. What do you do!"

"Well, _you_ said _sparkchamber_ , and _this_ is much lower, I would hesitate to compare a human's intestinal track to a Cybertronian spark chamber," First Aid said wryly, returning to his torquing.

"I was bein' liberal," Whirl scoffed, "I wasn't comparin' 'em functionally, but in risk factor."

"I suppose that's fair," First Aid hummed, "it's far less unrealistic for a mechanical like ourselves to perform maintenance in that particular area. I've done it myself more than once. An interesting dilemma, to be certain. So, in our hypothetical, ludicrous scenario," he continued, waving a wrench as he started to get into it, "You're laying in the acid wastes. You've got a bubble to keep the acid fumes out. Wild turbofoxes are stalking you. You need to get some kind of parasite out of your sparkchamber."

"Yes!" Whirl nodded, invigorated, "Perfect! Yes, so what would _you_ do in this scenario?"

First Aid leaned back in his chair and tapped his mask with his wrench, thinking about it, before he turned to look at Whirl. "Die," he said, succinctly, and returned to what he was doing.

Whirl had not been so want for a grimace in at least a century.

> [21:15:46] Cyclonus: Anode saw you headed downstairs in the direction of the medical bay. I will be there shortly. 

"You're no fun," Whirl complained, hopping off of First Aid's desk, "This is a bonding activity."

"I dunno what to tell you, Whirl," First Aid snorted, "That's way too pseudoscience. I don't think anyone could survive operating on their own spark chamber." 

"Yeah, but like, _theoretically_ ," Whirl whined, grabbing a handful of rust sticks from a box beside First Aid as he passed him.

"Hey! Those are mine!"

"Aw, come on, I'll bring you another box later," Whirl waved, "I'm gonna go spin hypotheticals with someone who's less of a buzzkill."

"Have fun."

Whirl waited until the door shut behind him to quicken his pace, anxiously listening for footsteps in the hall so he could avoid them. If he was coming from Whirl's room then he would be coming from upper deck, so Whirl turned toward the lower decks instead, making his way down to the oil reservoir.

The liquid in the reservoir tank sloshed when the door opened and Sparky reared her head up, blinking side optics at him for the unscheduled visit. 

"Sorry I didn't bring any snacks," he started, as she clambered out of the tank and shook her plating dry, "Well, uh, I brought some rust sticks if you want 'em."

Sparky chittered an obvious affirmative and he tossed her one that she grabbed out of the air and sat back on her haunches to munch on. 

"You know, you got lucky with the planet stop that Rodders agreed with me we shouldn't mention you to the organics," Whirl said, waggling a claw at her as he plopped down on his aft on the dock, crossing his legs, " _I_ had to _work_ the entire time we were there." 

Sparky stuck out a tongue at him. He handed her another rust stick. 

" _You_ are spoiled. You oughta come help me on riveting duty next time Rodimus is mad at me," he sighed, leaning back. She chirped a noise he interpreted as something along the lines of "sure" or "I don't understand what those words mean," and then leaned forward again, sniffing at the claw he was holding the last rust stick in.

"Nuh uh, you gotta earn these. Come on, let's see how you've been doing, huh? How about you give meeee," Whirl tapped one claw against his helm in thought, "Give me something heroic." 

She gave a quick nod and leaned back on her haunches, before her shape fluttered and rose back up. Whirl looked up at the visage of Optimus prime striking a particularly regal pose, holding an Autobot flag waving in the nonexistent wind.

"Something a little less propagandist," Whirl said, making a gagging motion, and then chuckled at the image of a pouting, energon stained Optimus Prime. The shape rippled and changed, and now it was _Whirl_ holding an Autobot flag fluttering in the nonexistent wind.

Whirl clapping wildly. "Phenomenal! They would _never_. Also, extra points for sycophantry, you're gonna go far in this world." He tossed her the last rust stick and she chittered happily, reverting to her weird amorphous dragon shape and grabbing the treat. 

The door pinged and Whirl flailed his arms in a panic. "Cover for me!" he hissed, and then threw himself into the oil tank like an idiot. 

The door opened, and Whirl pressed himself flat against the tank, helm just above the surface, willing himself to be silent as footsteps clicked against the dock.

"Good evening, little one," Cyclonus's voice rumbled, and Whirl resisted the urge to curse, "Have you seen your caregiver recently?"

Above him, Sparky chittered a negative. Cyclonus sighed. 

"Unfortunate. I had hoped he had come down here to sulk. He's being difficult again."

He heard servos strain as the old bot kneeled down and Sparky's claws tip-tap on the dock as she skittered over to be pet. 

"Yes, yes, good girl," he murmured, "You're fortunate you do not take after him. He makes himself infuriatingly difficult to help."

Whirl felt a sharp pang in his spark and dipped under the surface, floundering, clutching at his chest, and fought to keep from surfacing, terrified he'd given himself away. The sharp electric shock of pain that wracked through his core was only rivalled by the one in his head, the sick sense of satisfaction that he'd reminded Cyclonus what a bastard he could be. 

Distantly, muffled by oil, he heard the door reopen and shut. The oil burst again as the room's other occupant dove in and tackled him against the side of the tank, legs churning liquid as he scrambled to resurface. 

"Ugh, gross," he spat, clambering back up the lip of the tank onto the dock, looking around. He was alone. Alone except for Sparky, who was still trying to get him to play with her. He pulled himself up onto the ground and lay facedown, dripping and sullen. "I _just_ washed, I'll have you know," he told her wryly, though she didn't seem particularly sympathetic. 

He sat up, shaking oil out of his transformation seams, frustrated. Great. Well, he wasn't going to shake Cyclonus, that was for sure. The jerk was on a mission and it took moving a planet or two to get him to drop a mission once he got it into his head he was honor bound to do something. 

Alright, Plan A, Plan A. Well, if open spark surgery wasn't going to fix it, he was going to have to be more clever than a dumb plant. So, it was feeding off his little crush, huh? Getting all its nutrients every time his traitorous little spark had _feeeelings_ that weren't reciprocated? Well, he was just going to have to beat it at its own game. He couldn't get the feelings reciprocated, but maybe, with a little luck, he could _beat_ the feelings. 

Whirl shook oil from his helm again and opened a commline.

"Hey, Nautica, is that offer still on the table?"


	3. Langsdorffia Papuana

"Honestly, I never thought you would take me up on this!" Nautica laughed, tossing Whirl a bottle from her desk as he keyed the door shut. He caught it in one claw and scanned the label quickly. Geez, that was a _very_ high grade. He popped the cover off his wrist intake. 

"What, do I _give off_ prude energies or somethin'?" Whirl snorted, "I am a _well-known_ slut, I'll have you know." 

"Blablabla, Wreckers orgies," she mimed a chatting mouth with one hand and rolled her optics, "That was ages ago, I've read the war timeline on Autopedia. You've lost your reputation." 

"Well, fuck me, that's harsh," he crossed his arms, "What a way to get a guy in the mood, just crush his ego like that. I didn't know _that's_ what you were into." 

" _I_ am into genuine and earnest displays of affection between friends, and also, fisting," she plopped back on her berth, setting her own drink on the nightstand.

Whirl waved a claw at her wryly, "Unfortunately, I can't help you with that one."

"Not without getting _really_ creative," Nautica smirked, spreading her legs, "I mean, medical kink, too, but, honestly, I don't think you'd be very good at roleplaying." 

Whirl dumped in a shot from the bottle and corked it, setting it off to the nightstand next to Nautica's, "Eh, pro'lly not, but I'll give it a shot if you want, I ain't gonna be accused of bein' a selfish lover." 

"Oh, whatever, just let me plow you," Nautica rolled her optics, and Whirl snorted, already feeling a little better. This whole thing was _insanely_ casual, _exactly_ what he wanted. _No_ feelings, just good times with a good buddy. 

"Yessir!" Whirl snapped sarcastically, saluting, before clambering over top of the submarine, "Not that you put yourself in a position to _do_ that."

"Foreplay, my dear, have you heard of it?" Nautica's hands found their way to Whirl's back, moving upward along the plating and into the open cavity between his abdomen and cockpit, and he shuddered, arching his back struts into the contact.

"No," he said, stubbornly, "Who's that?" Whirl took a moment to consider his approach, before he moved his left claw onto her aft, pushing her up against his knees as he groped the metal, holding himself up with his right beside her head. She mewled in a way that indicated she was very satisfied with his choice, giving him a surge of confidence. 

"Oh, I dunno, just an old friend," she teased, grinding her hips upward against his own, wriggling her aft into his massaging. 

"Oh, cool, maybe you can introduce me, then."

"Hey, are you cool with kissing?" she asked, suddenly, and he froze, "It's okay if you're not, but I didn't want to just, like, do something without asking first."

"I ain't much of a kisser," he waffled, uncertainly.

"What, and Lockstock is?" she raised an eyebrow at him, "After _the incident?_ It's a question of comfort and consent, not reciprocity." 

"That is too damn big a word for any horny person to be usin'," Whirl complained, "Yeah, fine." 

Her mouth was on the lip of his helm as soon as the words were out, and boy, that had his engine purring in approval. Her dentae scraped along the lip of his optical housing and he grabbed her waist, shifting his grip to dig a claw into the seamline between her thigh and her pelvic housing, enjoying the return purr of her own engine. 

He whined involuntarily as one of her servos left the reverse plating of his undercarriage, moving downward to fondle his interface panels, already growing warm before she even touched them.

"Open for me," she purred, and Whirl snapped his panels aside immediately, groaning as her fingers teased at the lips of his valve, heel of her palm ghosting over her anterior node.

"Ah, _frag_ ," he groaned, rolling his hips into the touch, and she ran two fingers through his folds, already wet, and the feeling of open air on them made him full body shiver. 

"Ooh, sounds like it's been awhile," Nautica teased, and Whirl onlined his optic to glare at her.

"Do _not_ give me scrap, I _will_ leave you here with a boner," he threatened.

"No you won't," she smirked, deviously, and then plunged two fingers into his valve without any warning, sending him cussing into a shuddering mess as he smacked his head right into the berth beside the claw he had pressed there to hold him up, legs shaking, "I've got you in the palm of my hand." 

"Fine, fine, Primus, okay, you've got me, I'm a naughty boy or whatever the frag you want me to say, _yes_ it's been awhile," he snapped, mashing his helm further into the berth as she scissored her fingers open against the calipers of his valve, a delicious strain that he felt all the way up to his spark chamber, which, he noted, with pride, did _not_ hurt.

Nautica tittered with laughter, moving one thumb to his anterior node and he kicked against the berth, cussing, and squeezing the inside of her thigh greedily. She worked the swollen proto-flesh until lubricant was dripping down past her wrist before leaning up and ghosting her lips beside his audial, whispering, "Flip over," in the huskiest voice Whirl had ever heard. 

He grabbed her by the hips and rolled until he was on his back, regretting the loss of pressure in his valve as she yanked her hand away to grab his knee and stabilize herself. She adjusted her position, letting her interface panel slide back and her spike pressurize, twitching got against his valve and raised her hand, the one she had fingered him with to his face, licking her fingers. Whirl was totally frozen.

"Holy shit," he wheezed, "That was really hot."

Her optics lit up and she flashed him a peace sign, " _Thank_ you, I try." Nautica leaned forward over him, her spike pressing with more intent against his valve, "Good to go?" She asked.

"Yeah, yeah, come on," he grabbed at her wrists, trying to pull her on top of him properly despite his cockpit, and she snorted, grabbing his thighs and wiggling herself between them, his knees set over her waist and crossing at the ankles behind her. 

Whirl keened as she pressed inside him, a delicious pressure it _had_ been too long since he's indulged in. Self-service was _never_ as good as the real thing. He sighed as she bottomed out, their arrays flush with one another, spinal strut arched sharply as he acclimated to the stretch. 

"Mm?" she hummed after a moment, and Whirl hummed back an affirmative, rolling his hips up, relishing the way it made her spike shift inside him, calipers rolling over proto-flesh, and without any further ado, Nautica pulled back out, nearly all the way, and snapped back in, hard. 

Whirl had never been a quiet mech, in berth or otherwise. In fact, not knowing when to shut up was sort of a defining trait of his, and he made sure not to fail to live up to expectations as she set a brutal pace, his claws grabbing desperately at the headboard to keep from sliding backwards.

Nice to get some rougher action from the front for once, he was so used to being bent over at this point it was his _go_ _to_ , and he wasn't even that much of a _fan_ , considering the way he had to shift his cockpit even to _try_. There came a point where he gave up trying to keep up and just locked his ankles around her back, holding on for dear life. 

She came before he did, with one _perfectly_ hard thrust all the way in and then shuddering, abortive, jerky, follow-ups, spilling transfluid deep into his chamber, and he whined needily as her pace ended, charge built to burst and not yet released. 

"Sorry, sorry!" she laughed, but didn't pull out, even as she changed positions to get both her hands on his equipment, one on his spike and the other on his anterior node, and _Primus_ that was a lot of input, so much that he _wailed_ , smacking the berth with one claw, kicking one pede frantically, mindlessly, before he followed her into a _fantastic_ overload, spilling transfluid all over his own stomach.

Whirl panted, metal pinging, moist with condensation, staring up at the ceiling as it fuzzed in and out of focus. 

"Wow," he said, eventually. 

"Wow?" Nautica repeated, finally pulling her softened spike from his messy, tired valve, "Yes! I got a wow! Nice."

"Imaging I'm giving a thumbs up," he gasped shifting so he could thunk back against the berth properly to reset his ventilation cycle to something _remotely_ manageable. 

"I am imagining it, and I like it," she said, sitting back against the wall, before she thought better of it, leaned forward and grabbed her bottle, before returning to her comfier position against the wall and taking a swig. 

"Woo," Whirl cheered weakly, feeling disgustingly proud of himself. That was a good lay, a very good lay, deeply satisfying, very engaging. A bot in love would _not_ have so thoroughly enjoyed that frag with someone _not_ the object of their affections. Perfect.

"What is _that_?" Nautica asked, pointing.

"What?" Whirl looked up, confused, then followed where she was pointing to the front of his chest plating, where, between the seams of his breast plating, the pale blue petal of a Hanahaki Flower was emerging. 

"Oh," Whirl breathed, his vision closing like a tunnel around the spot. 

Nautica leaned forward and plucked the petal out between two fingers, pulling out a whole flower along with it and holding it up in front of her, the question unspoken. Whirl stared at it, mind a total blank, before the panic set in and he started lying. 

"Oh," he said, taking it from her and twirling it in his claws, "My job on the organic planet was clearing out a bunch of invasive flowers, I've had the things pouring out of my engine ever since."

"Oh," Nautica laughed, grabbing the flower back and tucking it into her helm, "It's pretty! Too bad it's invasive."

"Yeah," Whirl said, distantly, "So what did they have you doing planetside, hm?"

"Oh!" Nautica brightened and laughed, "Turns out they're all, like, allergic to water! So they have almost no water based technology. I scouted and mapped parts of their more notorious seabeds for them. It was fun! I never get to do any submarining anymore, since we're in space all the time."

"Ooh, sounds fun," Whirl commented, "Find anything interesting?"

"Yes, actually! A ton of really interesting species lived in their oceans, a whole ecosystem they had no information on! And me, with only a few days to soak up everything I can about it," Nautica sighed, and handed Whirl the bottle. He poured another shot into his wrist port, processor somewhere else. 

"Can I crash here for the night?" Whirl asked.

"Why, avoiding your boyfriends?" Nautica teased.

"What?" Whirl snapped, "No! I don't- they're not my- don't say stuff like that."

"Ooh, touchy, I'm sorry," she said, raising her palms up flat in apology, "I didn't mean to hit a nerve. You guys are just weird."

"Weird? What? We aren't weird. Who's weird?" Whirl sat up, and noticed suddenly the mess between his thighs that was starting to get gross, "Ugh, geez. Where's your towels?"

"Oh, they're on the desk. Grab me one?"

Whirl grunted as he got up, waddling to avoid rubbing his thighs together as he moved, grabbed a towel and wiped his array down. He tossed her one of her own. 

"I actually take that back, I said weird because you always talk about everything in a really irreverent way, and I like to join in, but, it's not _actually_ weird. It's nice. You guys are close, and I think it's sweet."

"Eugh, don't call me sweet," Whirl spat, flopping back down and grabbing his first bottle of high-grade, "I am a creature of sin and darkness the likes of which the world has never known and will never know again."

"You know, you're really hard on yourself sometimes," Nautica commented, "You should be happy you have such good friends."

"Ugh," Whirl groaned and collapsed backwards on the berth. 

"Of course you can crash the night," Nautica said, "That's like, fuckbuddy rule number 1. You don't kick someone out after sex, it's just rude."

"Cool."

"Shouldn't avoid them though," she commented, side-eyeing him, "If you aren't interested you gotta say so. Communication is key."

"Interested in _what?_ " Whirl groaned, annoyed at the earnest direction this conversation was moving in. 

"Them."

"What about them?"

"Them coming onto you," Nautica frowned, "Surely, they're coming onto you, right?"

"What?" Whirl raised his head and stared at her, baffled, "Are you joking? Those two are so in love they can't see straight. They'd never cheat on eachother. That's crazier than me." 

"No, that's not- ugh," Nautica rolled her optics, "I mean like, together. Polyamorously."

"Oh, that thing, right, I've heard of that," Whirl said, dropping his helm back down, "No, they're not into that. We're just friends." He felt another jolt of pain shoot through his spark, but he was expecting it, and refrained from reacting. He was good with pain. Pain he knew, pain he was familiar with. Of all the things he had to deal with right now, pain was the easiest of all of them.

"Oh, really?" Nautica asked, sounding surprised, "I totally had the wrong impression, then. I'm sorry, I know Cybes have like, a whole monogamy hang up thing, and like, I respect that, I do. Sorry for assuming."

"It's whatever," Whirl set his bottle back on the nightstand, because the achey feeling down his intake was starting to overwhelm him, "I'm gonna crash if that's cool." 

"Yeah, of course," she said, "and hey, Whirl?"

"Yeah?"

"We are _friends_ , you know," she said, "If you wanna talk about something, I'm happy to listen."

He stared at her for a moment, the idea rolling around inside his brain, before he laughed, "Nah, I got nothing specific on my mind. Thanks, though."

Whirl stretched his limbs like a cybercat and then rolled over, picking a side of the berth to claim ownership of. 

So. Plan A.1, get laid and forget all about crush, was a total bust. He had no idea how much time he had left, but considering the way the pain in his spark chamber was now radiating outward through his fuel lines, clawing deep in his frame, a sharp, clenching agony that twisted all of the struts in his chest like clay in a tight fist, it couldn't be too much. A few weeks? Days? He wasn't sure. But he knew he was on a time limit. 

Okay. Plan A.2. He would try again in the morning. He wasn't at Plan B yet. He would come up with something in time. He would. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shajfjfjf sorry my sex scenes are so boring, like, I know they are, as you might have guessed by now I'm a big dumb ace bitch and no matter what I do I just think sex is really lame and boring hdhdhfjf so... You can REEEEAAALLY tell in my writing my heart isn't into it sjhdjff I do my best, but, that's all one can ask I suppose. Next time: whirl tries some even dumber shit! More at eleven


	4. Amorphophallus Titanum

"Hey, Whirl, I'm on rotation today, you have to get up, I'm sorry." 

Whirl stiffened, stirring from recharge. He onlined his optic with a yawn and checked his chronometer. Morning, but early. 

"Right, right," Whirl mumbled, pushing himself up, "Ugh, you get up early, why do you take rotation this early?"

"More free time in the evenings," Nautica responded, as if it was obvious. 

"Ugh, pragmatism," Whirl stood up and stretched, reaching down to touch his pedes, "My truest nemesis."

"I'll see you later, Whirl," Nautica laughed, keying open the door and doing a funny little curtsey to usher him out.

"Yeah, yeah," he waved, "See you at Swerve's." 

Whirl checked his unread messages while he wandered through the residential deck, trying to think of a Plan A.2.

> [22:03:49] Cyclonus: You are being petulant. We live on the same ship, you cannot just hide forever.   
> [22:05:12] Cyclonus: Whirl, I have been looking for you for over an hour. Please stop with this charade and come find me when you are ready to admit what is wrong.
> 
> [22:07:22] First Aid: if that question was not actually hypothetical I might actually have to kill you man just a heads up
> 
> [22:14:33] Tailgate: whirlibird, you havent been this weird in awhile. are you ok? is something really wrong?  
> [22:40:14] Tailgate: im really worried about you. 
> 
> [23:02:01] Rodimus: hey whirl why the fuck do I have fifty two calls from ur boyfriends telling me to find ur aft  
> [23:02:45] Rodimus: what did u do bro
> 
> [03:42:27] Tailgate: checked your room again  
> [03:42:44] Tailgate: hope your ok. see you when your ready to be seen

Whirl was glad the hallway was empty, because the next bolt of pain made his knees buckle and sent him to the ground, gasping, clutching at his chest and the way his spark felt like someone had run it through with a _knife_. 

When he got his frame back under control, the first thing he noticed was the wrist of one arm, claws scraping the ground as he held himself up. His intake port cap was bubbled outward, burst, dribbling energon down the joints and onto the floor, discoloured a sickening, overbright magenta. He forced himself to sit up, on his ankles, and pried the distended cap off. 

His intake was brimming with periwinkle flowers, and the vines had now grown thorns between their delicate blossoms and soft leaves. The whole line was choked with them, roots buried in sentio metallica, burst energon lines leaking into it. Probably not the only compromised area in his frame. He jammed the cap back on and shoved himself to his pedes. 

Okay. Plan A.2. There had to be a Plan A.2. 

Beat the feelings. He just had to beat the feelings. Alright, a reminder of his options wasn't going to do it, but you know what might? Reminding himself all the reasons he used to hate them! Maybe he could do that again!

Okay. Let's start with all the reasons he hated those guys, and why he definitely DOESN'T lie awake at night thinking how perfectly Tailgate would fit beneath his cockpit laying beside him, that he DOESN'T watch Cyclonus stretch before sparring and wonder what his hands would feel like on him for something other than throwing him across the room- 

Whirl clutched his chest again, his optic going white nearly to burst with the pain. Okay, honestly, a difficult line of thought, and not helping. The more he thought about them the more it was spreading. He needed to kill this crush right now, before he got to Plan B. 

Okay. Plan A.3.

Whirl found himself standing outside of Chromedome and Rewind's habsuite.

He picked up the pace and hurried down the hall, trying desperately to think of _anything_ else.

Plan A.4. _Crushing_ his hopes to the point he would just _give up_ , like he gave up on _everything._ Now THAT was an idea! 

He picked up his helm, feeling a little more confident. There was nothing he was better at than making people hate him. It was like, his entire thing! So that's all he had to do.

Whirl had been alive long enough to know that guilt could eat at you _forever,_ guilt could ruin your life, but hate? Hate was easy. Hate was a thing you could touch and hold and do something with. Guilt would rip your insides out and leave you hollow, unfillable, void. Better to give them hate than guilt. It was the obviously kinder solution. And THAT would sink his blasted crush right there. Whirl checked his subspace to count his grenades. Perfect! 

* * *

Wow. He was going soft.

He had scanned the habsuite twice to make sure it was empty, but he still couldn't quite pull the grenade pin and blow the place up. Something was stopping him, and it wasn't anyone physically beating him until his claws couldn't close straight, it was something much worse: _guilt._

"Whirl! You're here!" Whirl jolted and hit _immediate_ panic mode at Cyclonus's voice at the end of the hall, and before he had a clue what he was doing, he had torn out the grenade pin and pitched it down the hallway as hard as he could.

"Shit, I didn't mean to-" he stammered, uncertain if an emotion such as "panic 2" existed or if he had just created it, but Cyclonus immediately skittered backward, completely losing his composure.

"What in the name of-"

The explosion wasn't even close to him, thank Primus, but the hallway lit up and the walls and floor near the explosive buckled beneath the force, smoke filling the corridor as the emergency alarms began. Well, that had not been what he was _trying_ to do, but it was time to go for broke, apparently. 

Whirl transformed and kicked off, hard spinning his rotors and slammed into his favourite purple frienemy, until the both of them slammed into the wall at the end of the hallway and crashed right through it. Whirl transformed mid-air back to his root mode as he went tumbling through _someone's_ habsuite, frantically scrabbling at the floor for purchase to right himself again. 

"What are you _doing?!_ " Cyclonus yelled, utterly bewildered, "Are we _fighting?_ Why are we _fighting?_ "

Okay, he should have known that one bodyslam was not going to make him angry. They sparred all the time and Cyclonus never got emotionally invested until things had really gotten heavy. He always really made him work for it. 

"Aaahhh!" Whirl shrieked, and launched himself at Cyclonus again, back through the wall they had come through, rolling three or four times before the spinning stopped. Cyclonus was trying to grapple him and get him onto the floor, but Whirl was still much bigger than him, much wigglier (it's a word, trust me) than him, and much more willing to dislocate his shoulder to stop himself from being grappled than him. Whirl scrambled off Cyclonus and back to his pedes, panting.

"Fight me!" he yelled, holding up and snipping his claws ominously, "C'mon!"

" _What?_ Absolutely not! What is this even _about?_ " Cyclonus looked like he wanted to throttle him, which was the look he wanted, but he was still funnelling that anger in the wrong direction. 

"Fight. Me!" Whirl repeated, stomping his pedes to accentuate his point. 

"What are you two _doing?!_ " Whirl snapped his optic behind Cyclonus, where Tailgate was gesturing wildly at- well, sort of at everything. He hadn't even noticed the minibot with Cyclonus before he'd started brawling. 

_Perfect_ timing, though. Whirl didn't have to _touch_ the minibot, because hoo boy, he was not sure could even go through with _that_ with all the gumption in his gizzard- all he needed to do was move his optic from Tailgate back to Cyclonus and narrow it with unspoken intent, and that was that. Cyclonus charged, even if he didn't go for his sword. Boo. 

Whirl grabbed at Cyclonus's servos as they went for his shoulders, but a leg sweep took his pedes out from under him, and sent him falling forwards. He rolled into the motion and grabbed Cyclonus by the hips, tackling him to the floor with him. He got a knee to underside of his helm casing for his effort, a sting that hurt just right, and _slammed_ one of his shins down on Cyclonus's arm, pinning it to the floor, and yanked back a clenched-claw fist to punch him right in the faceplate.

Primus damn it. Whirl froze. 

Wow, _that_ was an expression staring back at him. _Confusion-anger-hurt_ , on someone he'd gotten so used to being a statue. This new, more open Cyclonus never failed to blow through all of Whirl's careful walls. Whirl was really happy for him, that he was finally starting to get comfortable with _feeeeling_.

Speaking of _feeeeling_. That look, especially the _hurt_ part was making Whirl _feeeel_ a hell of a lot.

His fist hung in the air, chest heaving with exertion, optic faltering as he stared down at Cyclonus. Finally Cyclonus ungrit his dentae and spoke.

"Are you _crying?_ " he asked.

"What?" Whirl snapped backwards at the accusation, caught off guard, "No. I can't even do that. Why would you ask that?"

"Whirl…" 

Whirl turned his head up towards Tailgate, his voice breathless, aghast. Whirl stumbled to his pedes, backing away.

"What are you _talking_ ab-" Whirl froze as he felt a drop of liquid splash against his cockpit glass, and reached up with one claw to touch the rim of his optical housing.

Wet. But not with optical lubricant. Energon. 

Now that he was paying attention, he could feel it- that same pain that had started in his sparkchamber and begun to take over his senses was crawling up the redundant intake line in his throat, the one he'd once used uncountable millenia ago, now bloated, welling energon from internal bleeding that had burst through old lines- vomiting up energon through his optical housing, wow. That was certainly a new, horrifying thing to add to the list of horrifying things that had happened to him.

"I gotta go," he wheezed, hoarsely.

"What? No!" Tailgate yelled as Whirl spun and transformed, and escaped. 

Whirl turned off his commline before it could make things worse than they already were and focused on making himself as scarce as possible. Difficult, when you're a 47 ton helicopter with legs, but you couldn't blame a guy for trying. 

His processor spun in a frenzy, overworked and overwrought, taking turns as soon as they came and trying to come up with a plan A.5, A.6, A.7, anything, _any_ idea short of Plan B, but his mind felt blank. He'd screwed the pooch on this one, as usual.

He was in deeper than he thought. He was definitely, _definitely_ in dire need of medical attention. Maybe he could lie about _why_ and say that he had no idea what the flowers were or why he was filled with them, but even if Ratchet came out of his ozone hotboxed room to cut all of these damn things out of him, he had a sneaking suspicion they would grow back the second he woke up post-op and his wretched _friends_ were there trying to _fix things_ and _talk to him_ and make him _feel better_ and-

And he crashed with a hiccup, skidding across the floor before he transformed back into his root mode and doubled over again, gasping for air through his strangled vents, clogged by organic matter. This train of thought was _not_ helping. 

The alarm overhead continued to blare, dizzying Whirl's processor and making it miserably difficult to think straight. Well. This had all gone about as poorly as it could have. It might be time to consider Plan B.

Pretty much his go-to for the last four million years, sure, though he'd been easing off lately, more or less since Cygate took off. Possibly connected, possibly also he was just doing good work in therapy. Who the hell was his therapist, anyway? He felt like had had missed his last appointment and that was giving him a frustrating sense of lingering anxiety. 

Whatever, back to old coping methods. So what, this parasite was going to kill him one way or another at this point, he'd really let it go totally unresolved without getting help from a doctor when he actually had time to do so and there was no escaping it now. That organic had left Rodimus with all his _paperwork_ when they left the planet, and even if Rodimus didn't _read_ any of it, if Whirl went to medbay with an organic parasite he picked up at the last stop _someone_ would, and bam. That's it, game over. 

Imagining _that_ discussion was making his fuel tanks _flip_. Disappointment, discomfort, the awkwardness of sudden distance when his _friiiiiends_ pulled away because they realized they'd let him in too close, he'd gotten too comfortable, too presumptuous. Taking what he wasn't given, demanding more just by sticking around. They'd probably even _fight_ about it. 

His tanks roiled again and he doubled over and hit the floor with a _clack_ he could barely even hear over the blaring alarms, purging his tanks. Not that _that_ was easy, considering how clogged his intake was- by the time his vision cleared, even if his optic was smudged with overflow energon, the floor was covered in pink fluids and thorny blue flowers. Ah, _shit._

"Whirl! Would you _please_ calm the _fuck_ down?" Whirl blearily looked up and behind him at Cyclonus and snorted a laugh at the way he was huffing and puffing from chasing after him. Man, they were _all_ getting soft! 

Whirl clambered back to his pedes, wavering. Okay, okay, options, game plan. He was definitely caught kind of dead to rights now, but he was nothing if not stubborn. Best case scenario was getting downstairs to the incinerator, but there was no way he'd make it there at this point, not now that he was cornered. He _really_ needed a no evidence kind of out, and briefly considered comming Sparky's radio to come get him, but that would almost _definitely_ traumatize her, so that was a no-go too. He couldn't exactly dive out the airlock, they'd just come _get_ him.

"Are you- are you _possessed_?" Cyclonus demanded, awkwardly, "Is this another classic Lost Light scenario, with mind control, or time travel, or cloning, or-" 

"No," Whirl wheezed, "I'm just an afthole."

"I already know _that_ ," Cyclonus groaned, throwing his servos open, "do you have _any_ kind of explanation for your _insane_ behaviour or are you _really_ going to force me to disable you and drag you down to First Aid?" 

Whirl raised a claw and waved it, "Imagine a thumbs up." 

"You are _incorrigible,_ " Cyclonus hissed, and slid back one of his pedes until he was in the same stance he always started in when they sparred, "If you _insist_ on behaving erratically and _clearly_ putting yourself in danger, you aren't leaving me a wealth of choices."

Whirl shifted, wobbling, opening his arms wide, vision a blurry mess of shapes and colours, "What, did you expect any better from me?" 

"Of course," Cyclonus answered, without pausing, "I still do."

"You're an idiot, you know that?" Whirl argued, waving a threatening claw, " _I_ am a creature of sin and darkness the likes of which the world has never known and will never know again. I am not your _friend_."

"Yes, _you are_ , whether you like it or not," his tone was admonishing, irritated, and carried the biting threat of 'and I'm _still_ willing to break your legs and drag you downstairs to a doctor' and Whirl scoffed, wavered.

" _No_ ," Whirl snapped, "Stop that. Stop all of that. I don't want your help with this. Come _on_ , Cy, you're making me work too hard for this! I'm being an afthole, here!" 

"You _certainly_ are!" Cyclonus groaned, "Surely we are _past_ this by now- _you_ are the one who put _me_ in my place for my- my own _difficulties_ with communication, are you really going to be so hypocritical about this?"

"What's that s'posed to mean?"

Ooh, that throttling look again, a classic. " _Whirl_ , I am not too proud to admit that you are my closest friend, and I _hope_ that you know this. You are giving me _great_ reason for concern right now." 

" _I_ am doing just fine, excuse you," Whirl mumbled, and then stumbled as he felt something tighten around one of his knee joints and squeeze, painfully. Wow, where was security, what was taking them so l- oh, yeah, those guys were all dead now. Rodimus really needed to do something about that. The only footsteps Whirl could hear were Tailgate's as he _finally_ caught up with them.

"Look at you! You're about to pass out!" Cyclonus gestured at Whirl's all of him, "You're _covered_ in energon!" 

"No, I'm not," said Whirl, stubbornly. 

Tailgate finally skidded into the hallway, panting frantically as he came to a halt, leaning on his knees to reset his ventilation cycle, waving one hand wildly, "Primus, can you two please _not_ leave me behind next time, some of us can't _fly-_ "

"You are _going_ to stop this nonsense and admit what's wrong!" Cyclonus said, raising his voice, and Tailgate stood up straight with a gasp.

"Cyclonus, don't yell at him!"

"I am not yelling at him, I'm-"

"Yeah, Cyclonus, don't _yell_ at me!" Whirl mimicked.

" _You_ be quiet!" Tailgate snapped, and Whirl couldn't help but be struck by how cute his concern was when he was both yelling at him and yelling at Cyc not to yell at him, and how stubborn Cyclonus himself was being, refusing to let him piss him off, and-

Yup, Whirl was back on the floor again. His arms shook with the effort of holding up his frame, suddenly feeling heavier than ever, or at least, his struts weaker than ever. 

His vents were all useless, clogged and chugging, and his frame was working itself up, overheated and unable to dump hot air anywhere, unable to cycle coolant, unable to move fuel- he could _see_ vines creeping out of his joints, petals gently unfurling from all his nooks and crannies.

"Whirl, what _is_ this?" Tailgate's voice was _oozing_ concern, and he saw rather than felt his servos on him, investigating the organic material locking his elbow joint together, "What have you _done?_ "

"It's just flowers," he slurred, leaning a little too heavily on the minibot, "It's nothing."

"It's not nothing!" Tailgate cried, "You're bleeding everywhere, why did you let it get this _bad_ , Whirlibird?"

Ope, the nickname cut _straight_ into his spark chamber like it was cleaving him open. Whirl cried out and arched, before he went totally strutless, collapsing forward. It wasn't Tailgate's servos that caught him, though. 

"First Aid," Cyclonus said, distantly, "I've got him, I'm on my way now. Yes, it's bad."

Whirl's awareness was starting to feel dreamy, liquid, uncertain, but he thought he might be being carried. "It's _fine_ ," he mumbled, "I've got it _under control._ I've got a gameplan."

"You are an idiot," Cyclonus told him, succinctly. 

"It's Plan A-point-something, the one where I pass out in the hallway and we're all just really cool about it."

"I don't know, it's some kind of organic material," Cyclonus continued into his comm, completely ignoring Whirl's babbling, "Flowers? He was burning away some kind of invasive plant back on that planet we stopped at, but I don't know what it is." 

Ah, fuck it. The jig was up. He'd completely failed at Plan B, like every other time he'd ever tried. To much of a coward or an idiot to get it done right, surprising absolutely no one. "Hanahaki," he wheezed, "Parasite."

"You are very fortunate I care about you more than you seem to care about _yourself_ ," Cyclonus spat, and the following wave of pain the comment triggered was enough to completely knock Whirl offline.


	5. Rafflesia Arnoldii

Whirl woke up flailing, frenzied, but delighted to note the ease with which all of his limbs moved- no more vines growing right through the joints, hm? He shoved himself upright, head rushing as he did, claws snapping up to clutch his helm until he restabilized. 

"Ugh," he groaned, looking around and trying to orient himself. Where even _was_ he? Medibay? Not medibay, too empty, too-

"Good morning," a dry voice said, sounding _particularly_ annoyed. Whirl flailed, startled, spinning around. Cyclonus was sitting cross legged on another berth, holding a data pad and a mug with a cartoon character on it and side eyeing him, mouth a grim scowl. 

"Wh-" Whirl scrambled for a logical reaction, trying to figure out why he was in a weird empty room, "Where the hell are-"

" _Quarantine,_ " Cyclonus deadpanned, "Your _parasite_ is infectious."

"Oh," said Whirl, feeling dumb, "Oh! Oh, shit, oh, f- Nautica!" 

" _Nautica_ is fine," Cyclonus took a sip from his mug, " _She_ isn't suffering from any _unrequited affections_." 

"Oh," said Whirl, "Ah. Right."

"Are you _quite_ finished throwing your little twelve hour tantrum, or are we going to ruin _another_ habsuite?" 

"Uh," Whirl leaned forward, claws on his ankles, "No, I think I'm good." 

"Lovely," Cyclonus tapped his datapad, turning the screen off and setting it to the side as he shifted to face his new roommate, "Are you ready to discuss the circumstances of your current predicament yet?"

"Uhhhhhhhhh," Whirl whined, increasing in pitch as he searched the empty room for _literally_ anything else to talk about, "Can we maybe just like pretend this never happened and never ever talk about it ever?" 

"No," Cyclonus responded, as if that was what he had expected, "Three medics spent _six hours_ cutting organic material out of you and you're _still_ rife with the stuff, even with a stasis lock on it. You have to _address_ the parasite's _source._ "

"Okay, cool, but consider this other option: we don't do that, and I just stay in this tiny room by myself forever and never talk about it."

Ooh, throttle look! 

"You've already made this as hard on yourself as you _possibly_ could by refusing to acknowledge it," Cyclonus sighed, pinching the bridge of his nasal ridge and shuttering his optics, "Must you continue to do so? I would much prefer it if you would _just_ let us do things the easy way for _once_."

Whirl fidgeted, clacking his claws and searching the room for a nonexistent out one more time, "Okay. Fine. Fine, let's talk about _feeeeelings._ "

"Wonderful," Cyclonus let his hand fall back to his mug, "Then I will begin by assuring you I am not upset with you for your, as you so eloquently put, _feeeelings_ , as much as I am for setting off a grenade outside of my habsuite. Again."

"That first time was an _accident_ " Whirl snapped. 

"Stay on target."

"Hnn," Whirl rubbed the back of his neck, willing an explanation that wouldn't make him yearn for the sweet release of death to make itself known to him and suffering no such luck, "I guess I'm harbouring some, uhhh, feelings. Romantically. According to some plants. The plants say I am.”

"Right," Cyclonus took another sip from his mug, clearly indicating he should continue. Miserable. Evil. Bastard. 

"Ugh, I don't _want_ to talk about this!" Whirl snapped, "It's not productive! It doesn't _matter_ what feelings I got or don't got or who they're for because they ain't gonna _go_ anywhere!"

"And how do you know _that?_ " Cyclonus asked. 

Whirl stalled, gears in his helm turning like a hamster wheel, "What?" 

"I asked how you could _know_ they would not go anywhere if you didn't _ask_."

Whirl stared at him, narrowing his optic, "Is that a joke? It ain't funny."

"It's not a joke. I'm asking why you think you know that."

"Don't fuck with me, Cyc, come on, I've had a bad enough day as it is.”

“So have I. I am not 'fucking' with you.”

“That-” Whirl scrambled for a response, rubbing at his optic, “That don’t make sense.”

“Fine, if you’re really going to insist I _drag_ it out of you,” Cyclonus sighed, “Whirl, _who_ are you harbouring romantic feelings for?”

“Ugh! Fine!” Whirl threw his claws in the air and let the humiliation wash over him, “I’m _sorry_ , I don’t know, you guys are really nice to me, and I guess I’ve gotten too Primus damned used to it, because the _plants_ say I’m in love or something! Are you happy? Are you happy now?”

Cyclonus’s face finally softened from his dour mask, “No, not particularly. This is hardly the scenario in which I would want to discuss with you something so precarious. I am, however, proud of you.”

“Ugh,” Whirl groaned, throwing his helm into his claws, “Stop saying stuff like that. That’s the problem in the first place, you say stuff like that and I get the wrong idea in my head without even trying.”

“I wonder if you’ll ever learn how to stop letting your own proficiency at self deprecation overwhelm your own powers of basic observation,” Cyclonus exhaled, “You do, then? For me, or Tailgate?”

“I dunno,” Whirl mumbled, behind his claws, “Both, I guess. It’s stupid. I don’t know. I can’t help it. I spent all day trying.”

“... _That’s_ why you threw a _grenade_ in my _hallway_?”

“Yes, that’s why I threw a grenade in your hallway!” Whirl yelled, snapping his helm up, “Desperate times call for desperate measures! I don’t know how to solve problems I can’t fix with punching!”

“Maybe ask someone who solves their problems without their fists for advice next time? We broke right through Spoke and Lockstock’s habsuite, that’s the _third_ time they’ve had to move now."

“Oh, whatever, they’re used to it,” Whirl threw his helm back into his claws and began trying to will himself to get sucked up by a passing wormhole or something, “I’m _sorry_. You guys are nice to me and I didn’t want to throw this slag in your lap to deal with.”

“I would have much preferred to deal with it before you nearly got yourself killed,” Cyclonus admonished, crossing his arms sternly.

“Right, but the original plan was to deal with it _without_ also nearly getting killed,” Whirl argued, “I’m not- fine, okay, listen, I know I’m _difficult_ , I wasn’t _trying_ to be, I just- I didn’t want to fuck things up, and now I have, and- and I’m _sorry_ I threw a grenade in your hallway, and I’m sorry I punched you, and- and I’m sorry I avoided you. There.”

“Apologies accepted,” Cyclonus said, uncrossing his arms, “After _all of that_ , I really have to ask, Whirl, has it not yet _occurred_ to you why I might _also_ be in quarantine?”

“Wha?”

“I told you Nautica was not in quarantine because she was not harbouring any unreciprocated romantic feelings,” Cyclonus spelled out, slowly, “So, why, Whirl, do you think that _I_ am here?”

Whirl stared at him, wheels turning sluggishly, before the penny dropped and his optic snapped open, “Hey!”

Cyclonus spread his palms open, exasperated.

“Oh, come on, that’s no fair, you made me _say_ it, you afthole!”

“You’re _damn right_ I did,” Cyclonus narrowed his optics, “I obviously can’t trust you to tell me the truth when you go to these extremes to try to accommodate whatever you’ve decided I want! Also, again, you _threw_ a _grenade_ in my _hallway_ , and you deserved it.”

“Okay, _fine_ , I deserved it,” Whirl snapped, hugging his arms across his abdomen below his cockpit, “Say it.”

“I have no reservations about telling you how much I enjoy your presence,” Cyclonus said, expression finally softening again, “I’ve _suffered_ the consequences of unspoken intent, and I am not wont to do it again. You have been both a positive influence on my life and a consistent friend on which I might rely, and I am _greatly_ appreciative of both. Yes, I love you very much, and I am in no way embarrassed to admit it.”

Whirl stared at him, imagining he was a broken clock, one hand stuck on the other, tick-tick-ticking without moving, before he tilted his helm to the side, “Huh.”

“Satisfactory?”

“Huh,” Whirl said again, tapping at his helm, trying to keep up with the direction this whole thing was going, “Uh… Well, then- how come _you_ didn’t say nothin’?”

“You threw a _grenade_ in my _hallway_ rather than talk about your feelings,” Cyclonus reminded him, “I didn’t think you were _ready_ to have this conversation. Frankly, I was right.”

“Oh,” Whirl went back to fidgeting, “But I don’t want to mess things up with you and the little guy,” he stared down at his claws, running his pincers against each other for the tactile distraction, “I’m getting kinda tired of breaking everything I touch.”

“I’d really prefer not to speak for him since he isn’t _here_ , but- he and I _have_ talked about this. Before you threw a grenade in-”

“In your hallway, I know, geez, let it go already! Come on."

"Fine. Before _today_ ," Cyclonus corrected, "We have… spoken, about the part you play in our relationship, and what part you might play in the future."

"...What, as like, a sex thing?"

"No, Whirl, _polyamorously_."

"Oh! I know what that is," Whirl tapped the underside of his helm casing, "Um, as in, like… at the same time? Like, a three-way but like dating?" 

"Sometimes you say things that make me want to both pick you up and hold you until you stop being so intent on being miserable, and also want to strangle you, at the same time. It's impressive."

"Aww, but you wanna _hold_ me."

"I want you to understand your feelings are not _unrequited_ , and whatever extent to which you want to act on them is something we can discuss together."

Whirl fidgeted uncomfortably, "...And how do I know you ain't just sayin' that to kill the parasite?" 

"I think that would be incredibly cruel of me."

"I know, but-" 

"Hang on," Cyclonus set down his mug and picked up his datapad. Whirl waited extremely impatiently while Cyclonus tapped away.

"Cyc! Is he awake?" Tailgate's voice filtered through the datapad's speakers, sounding like he'd been waiting for hours for this call. 

"Yes, he's up, finally."

"Have you talked to him yet?"

"We're talking now, yes."

"Is it my turn? Do I get to say something now?"

Cyclonus responded by handing Whirl the datapad. He took it uncertainly, eyeing the minibot who appeared to desperately want to climb the through screen, possibly to bonk him on the head again. 

"Whirlibird, you dumb fucking helicopter, I _adore_ you!" Tailgate yelled, "You are my best friend and I don't even care about the grenade you threw in my hallway!"

"I still care about the grenade," Cyclonus commented, and was ignored.

"I'm sure Cyclonus said it way fancier than I could but if _you_ want me to kiss you then _I_ wanna kiss you!!"

"We ain't got mouths," Whirl commented, because it was the easiest part of that statement to respond to. 

"Then we will get very very creative. Do not underestimate me, Whirl. Cyclonus, tell him not to underestimate me."

"Don't underestimate him."

"Birdy, we drag you everywhere with us!" Tailgate continued, his little hands clutched into fists against his chest, emphatic, "We _like_ you! And even if we hadn't wanted to go down that road with you, Whirl, you're our _friend_. We wouldn't have been mad at you! You can tell us stuff and we can just talk about it! You aren't going to ruin anything unless you're _trying_ to ruin something, you know, by, like, throwing a grenade into-"

"Ugghhhhh you guys are NEVER going to let the grenade thing go, are you?"

"Nope!"

Whirl groaned, trying his very best to glare at Cyclonus, who was watching him, bemused and smirking.

"Cyclonus- hey, hey-" Tailgate continued, "Cyclonus, go hug him. Go give him a hug. He needs a hug." 

"Yes, dear," Cyclonus said, standing up from his berth and sitting down beside Whirl on his. Whirl twitched, clutching the datapad in his claws that much tighter, before he set it down and leaned forward to Initiate The Hug. 

It wasn't like he hadn't _hugged_ anyone before, he wasn't _that_ pathetic. But it wasn't like holding Cyclonus up when he was sobbing about Tailgate, and it wasn't like the post-fight Wreckers celebrations. It definitely felt different. Soft in a way he hated being. Vulnerable in a way he wasn't supposed to be. 

"So, um," Whirl mumbled, pressing his helm into Cyclonus's shoulder, trying not to obsess over the thrum of his spark beneath his chest plating, pressed against his own, "Is that… are we a thing? Now? Is that what we're doing?"

"Is that what you want?" Cyclonus's claws should _not_ feel so gentle against his back.

"I- yeah. Yeah."

"Then yes." 

"Oh," said Whirl, feeling weirdly giddy and tightening his grip, "Cool. Um, are we allowed out of quarantine yet?"

"Oh, Primus, no, we're stuck here for a _week_."


End file.
